There are a number of medicament delivery devices that have been developed and that are on the market which are intended for self-medication. Many of these devices are provided with medicament containers, to which medicament delivery members such as injection needles are attachable, or integrated with.
Some injectors have been provided with needle shields that are releasably attached to the injection needles. The purpose of the needle shields is to protect the environment against unintentional needle sticks as well as to protect the needle against contamination.
A conventional type of needle shield is a shield or sheath of a resilient and flexible material such as rubber, silicone, or the like. Before the delivery of a drug the flexible needle shield is manually removed by pulling it off the injection needle.
A more recent variant of needle shield is also called rigid needle shield or RNS. An RNS has an inner sheath of resilient and flexible material such as rubber or silicone, which is surrounded by an outer cover of a rigid material such as hard plastic. Before the delivery of a drug the RNS is removed by manually pulling the outer cover off the needle, whereby the inner flexible sheath follows.
In any of the above needle shields, there is a risk that a user is injured on the exposed needle during removal of the needle shield, either if it is a flexible or a rigid needle shield. Some persons may also feel discomfort having to handle components so close to the needles. Because of this, some devices have been developed that can be attached to the needle shields such that the risk of injury is reduced.
One such device is disclosed in WO 2010/089589. There, a medicament delivery device is arranged with an outer forward packaging part at a proximal or front end of the device. When the medicament delivery device is to be used, the forward packaging part is pulled off the device. Inside the forward packaging part a number of fingers are arranged, where each finger is provided with an outwardly extending enlargement and an inwardly extending blade, such that when the forward packaging part is pulled off, the blades grip a rubber needle sheath which surrounds the needle. Thus when the forwards packaging part is removed, so is the rubber sheath.
Document US 2010/0016793 discloses a similar device having a cap with grip means in the form of rearward protrusions which engage a rubber boot surrounding an injection needle when the cap is removed or pulled off a medicament delivery device.
WO 2005/115508 discloses an injection device having a protective cap with which a rigid needle shield may be removed when a dose of medicament is to be delivered. The protective cap is therefore arranged with a castellated washer of metal. When the cap with the washer is pushed onto the rigid needle shield surrounding an injection needle of the medicament delivery device, the washer grips into the rigid plastic material and a firm connection is established. When later the protective cap is removed, the rigid needle shield will follow.
However, even if working properly for the respective type of needle shield, no device has been disclosed that can handle several different types of needle shields, such as e.g. flexible needle shields as well as rigid needle shields. For some medicament delivery devices development has been done for handling different types of medicament containers provided with either rigid needle shields or flexible needle shields. Thus, each type of needle shield requires a certain specific solution that is not easily transferable to the other type of needle shield.